Capturing the marks of the Maestro: conservation, digitisation and preservation of material evidence in the Sir Georg Solti Archive

Written by Catherine Badot-Costello, presented at Unexpected fame: Conservation approaches to the preparatory object, Proceedings from the International Conference of the Icon Book & Paper Group, Oxford 1–2 October 2018 

 

Abstract


The Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library at Harvard University is home to the archive of legendary conductor Sir Georg Solti. The collection spans his entire career and contains 487 published scores, which Solti heavily annotated and amended for both live performance and recording for Decca Records. Many flyleaves of the bound scores contain lists of cities and dates of those performances. Solti’s working methods and resultant material evidence present challenges for the conservator and the digital workflow. The amendments, often complicated by layered pressure-sensitive tape, Post-it notes and offset media, reveal Solti’s unique working methods and must be considered when forming a conservation and digitization plan. This paper will focus on the development of treatment protocols to stabilize the collection while preserving evidence of Solti’s working methods. It will also assess how well the digitized scores translate that evidence to the user.

Download the paper from the ICON Book and Paper Group site for the conference.

For more information on the Sir Georg Solti Archive housed in the Isham Memorial Library, part of the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library at Harvard, visit the online exhibition here.